How Bumble’s CEO Flips the Traditional Dating Gender Dynamic | Ep. 15 | The Inflection Point

Foreign.

I'm at the Aspen Institute in Colorado to meet Whitney Wolfhard, the CEO of Bumble. Her goal is simple. A kinder and safer online social network for all.

How do we use our product to actually engineer better behavior instead of just facilitate bad behavior?

It started with the Women first dating app and is on its way to become a lifestyle brand today. She is the youngest female CEO to ever take a company public.

The fact that I was the youngest, I'm like, oh, my gosh, we have a problem here.

I'm Monica Langley, and this is the Inflection point. Whitney, welcome to the Inflection Point. It's a pleasure to be here in Aspen at the Institute to see you today.

Thank you.

Okay, so you know the name of the show is the Inflection Point. That's always my first question. So was there a moment in your life when everything changed?

I mean, I think everybody has many inflection points every single day, but few of them actually stick and become real inflection points. Right. And for me, my inflection point, I would say, was when I thought I was at the bottom of my barrel, when everything seemed to crumble. I had left a very high growth startup in 2014 after being a co founder there and helping build the business with, you know, a small and really passionate team for two years.

Tell us what the company was and why.

So the company was Tinder. And when I left, you know, my world fell apart and everything that I left continued on in this remarkable trajectory. And I was kind of, you know, I'd fallen off the rocket ship.

A lot of people find their inflection point and say, this was when something great happened. That was the starting point for my life. And you're saying your inflection point was like at a rock bottom moment?

Yes, and I think perspective is so critical. Leaving this company that I was so incredibly passionate about, which meant losing everyone that I had been involved with for two years. You know, from co workers to friends to network. You know, this felt devastating. And, you know, the publicity that followed was something I could have never anticipated or expected or.

I mean, it was a sensation and you became sensational in a way.

Well, it was wild to watch this whole narrative unfold about yourself when you are really at home in sweatpants, crying, devastated, lost, confused. And at 24 years old, you think your life is over. That's a really sad place to be after just months before. You were on top of the world. But what followed really shifted the whole next chapter of my life.

You know, Whitney, a lot of people can relate to what you went through. I mean, all of us have had setbacks and have been on the floor and cried and like, where do I go now?

All of a sudden I was actually exposed firsthand to how broken and toxic the Internet was. I would wake up to dozens, if not hundreds of messages of sheer hate from strangers and oftentimes people that weren't strangers. And so that was where I really had this moment. Literally in the sweatpants, depressed on the floor. Literally on the floor. A bath mat, to be precise, in a bathroom.

Okay, that's a good visual.

Yeah, but it's a real one. Just to be, you know, just to really put it all out there. And I had this epiphany of sorts. If I was going through this as a woman with resources and support and friendships and all of the great things, what is the 13, 15, 12 year old, 22 year old who doesn't have the same support system going through what is happening to her on her phone? And I really thought to myself, listen, I've got this experience. I know what goes into building a tech company. I now all of a sudden have this random public name. And that was really where I decided I'm going to go and build a woman only social network to recalibrate how we treat each other. So that was really the beginning. And then of course, that journey took on a whole life of its own in order to get to Bumble.

So how did Bumble originate?

Yeah, so like any, you know, origination story, there's lots of twists and turns, right? Nothing is linear. So basically I had this intention of building this positive social network and I start designing with a designer and I start ideating and I start, you know, the name was going to be Mercy. So I start the whole process, right? We are picking colors and we're choosing exactly functionality and drawing, you know, mock wireframes and the whole thing. And then I get an email out of the blue from a man that I had met briefly during my time at Tinder. And he was the founder and CEO of a very large European dating website called Badoo. We eventually decided to sit down together, Andre and myself, and he tried to convince me to come in as his head of marketing at this European dating app. And I respectfully said, no, thank you. My next go round, I'm founder and CEO, I have to be in control of my destiny. After lots of back and forth, he basically says to me, okay, I'll make you a deal. I will give you all the resources and the investment and I'll give you a remarkable partnership opportunity, which you won't find in Silicon Valley. They're just going to give you capital and that's it. And you can build anything you want to empower women and to make the Internet safer. I support it. I'm behind it 100%. But there's a caveat. It's okay. This does sound too good to be true. What's the caveat? He says it has to be in dating. Again, I'm traumatized by the word dating. At this point, I don't even want to think about the dating world. And he said, no, really, honestly, think about it. So it took me a while to think about it. And ultimately, even though it scared the light of day out of me, I saw the opportunity to do something better for women. And that was really the beginning. And that was what then led to me saying, okay, well, if we have to start with dating, if we're going to approach fixing the Internet from the lens of dating, what's broken in dating, which I'm sure you can relate to, since the time we were born, we were told, you sit back, you wait for the man. Candidly, it's not fair for men because it's setting them up to be rejected. And when you really break out, why the Internet is so toxic, it generally comes down to this root of rejection. Someone feels rejected and they lash out. So I thought if we could delete rejection and empower women, you don't put all the emphasis on the man going first, where he's just going to be ignored and women have to go first. And we totally flip the dynamic of decades and hundreds and hundreds of years of society's rules. Women are going to talk first on this product. And that was really the beginning of Bumblebee.

And that became the claim to fame for Bumble. Women make the first move.

That's right. And since then, we've evolved into a full fledged relationship platform that is striving for healthy and equitable relationships. We allow, you know, zero bad behavior on our product. And we've made a lot of very outlandish, as perceived by a lot of the other tech companies, rules. Right? We've set a lot of rules that nobody else has done before. And so this has really been the way we've approached business from day one, which is, how do we take a progressive approach to better behavior? How do we use our product to actually engineer better behavior instead of just facilitate bad behavior?

What was day one like when you launched Bumble? What was that moment like for you?

Take us to that day, it was just four. It was like a small, little mighty team at that point, living in Texas. We had a few other team members and, and a bunch of our engineers and product folks in London. But it was just the four of us that morning. And it was really scary because it was interesting. Remember, I had this awful online Persona like Whitney Wolf, Tinder villain, and one of the tech publications actually got wind that Bumble was going to launch. And the whole plan with Bumble originally was I did not want to attach my name to it until we had 500,000 users. And then slowly I would step into it publicly because I didn't want it to be the me. And so this whole, like, Expose article came out before our launch and we had to scurry and figure out how to reclaim the narrative. And so we had to basically come up with a last minute launch strategy. And those three women I talked about actually jumped out of an airplane for our little video that we were using to explain the narrative of making the first move. And the whole message was, you know, it's a lot harder to jump out of an airplane than it is to send the first message. And so just go for it, just make the first move.

So let's talk about your origin. What propelled you to have this strong opinion about how women need control?

Yeah, I think it's a culmination of my whole life. I mean, I was always kind of an outsider in Salt Lake City. I have come from a mixed family in terms of religion. So, you know, Salt Lake City, especially in the early 90s, was very, very religiously, kind of singularly Mormon. And I came from a Jewish father who was very Jewish and his family is very proudly Jewish. And we would celebrate all the Jewish holidays and I would do the Jewish preschool. And then I had a Catholic mother. And so I was never enough for any group. And, you know, it's quite shocking how discriminatory a lot of people can be towards the Jewish faith. Right. This is something I've struggled with most of my early life, was having people call me names because I was Jewish. So I kind of grew up always being an outside looking in. Right. I was always observing these different communities. And in all of these communities that I was raised in, I found them to be quite patriarchal. And I think I was yearning for a world that was different. Right. And so as I started having my first relationships, I found myself in quite toxic positions, right. Where I was more of a controlled substance than a woman. Then I would look across my group of friends and even to their mothers and. And they were in the same relationships. And so I would say that that moment where I said, women have to make the first move, it was almost probably bubbling in me for years. But it never came out in this formulated fashion until that moment.

So you start Bumble, and it itself is a big sensation. I mean, it is a huge success. And the cool thing about Bumble, it's not just about matchmaking. It's also. It's a mindset. It is. It's not just a dating app.

It's so much more. And that was always the intention, right? I'll never forget, in those very early days of design, everyone was drawing hearts and love and cupids. And I said, no, nothing romantic. Nothing romantic. This is going to be a major connection tool. This is going to be the inverse of Facebook one day, right? If Facebook's for people, you know, we are going to be for people, you don't. We are going to help friends connect. We are going to help business partners find each other. This is going to be the future of connection, the future of women having healthy, empowering relationships beyond their love lives. So don't use hearts.

Whitney, you had such a great vision beyond the dating app. What did you do to make the culture at Bumble so unique and empowering for women? Because it is a pretty different culture from tech firms. Let's be honest. Technology companies don't have a Bumble culture.

For the most part, I think. You know, listen, and by the way, our culture is not perfect, right? We have our fair share of issues, which I think that's part of a good culture, is me being able to say that to you. The reality is building a company is hard, and curating and cultivating and managing a team is even harder. That's the hardest part of building a company. But what I personally have tried to do and I've tried to encourage our other leaders and I've tried to infuse it with others, is to just lead with kindness. And kindness, to me, is not being nice. These are very different things. Being nice and kind are very different. Nice is telling people what they want to hear. Nice is putting things under the rug. And kind is delivering tough, tough truth, but in a gentle and, you know, compassionate, empathetic way. So, you know, our culture has always been really working backwards from the mission, Right? If our mission is how do we create healthy and equitable relationships for people, let's try to do that amongst ourselves.

And also then more recently, you were the first CEO when Texas passed the abortion law to come Out. You've started a vc, I think, for women of color. I mean, you are continuing to be out front to help women.

These are natural steps for us. Right? We listen to the customers, we listen to the community, we listen to women around us. And everything we have done, every headline you've read from Bumble is just done as a natural next step to push our mission of women making the first move in their lives and to progressing healthy and equitable relationships for women. How can you say that women are entitled to healthy and equitable relationships if they're not entitled to control over their bodies? Right. So that is a natural moment for us to take a stance.

And you were instrumental in a law in Texas that it focuses on the digital world, not just the physical world. I mean, how. How important was that to you?

So this was probably the highlight of my career to date. If you look at the Internet, women will receive lots of digital harassment, and oftentimes that comes in the form of a lewd photo. Unsolicited lewd photo. Now, if somebody exposed themselves on the street, they, you know, took their clothing off, they would be arrested, and there would be a very serious consequence. This is really bizarre, that, and devastating that there's, you know, you've got the physical world that strives to protect you, and you've got the Internet, and it strives to hurt you.

But more girls and women are influenced by the digital world than the physical world.

If you look at data, girls and women are spending a great portion of their awake hours on their phones. So what are they being exposed to? They're almost more at risk on their phone than they are on the street.

As a mother of a daughter, she began seeing those lewd images as soon as she got a cell phone in middle school.

Yeah, it's devastating, and it's disgusting, and it's unacceptable. So we reached out to both sides of the table, and so we started getting this put together with great representatives, and we made it nonpartisan, and we're very, very, very proud that it passed with a unanimous yes vote at the Texas Senate. So this is now an actual law in the state of Texas.

And that was in 2019.

That's right, 2019. And we are now actively pushing this in other states and hopefully at the federal level and then hopefully even in other countries. The Internet is the wild, wild west, and it's dangerous. And so I'm personally deeply passionate about using Bumble's platform as a vehicle to hopefully enact change.

You know, it's fascinating to me that you say that this Texas law is the highlight of your career. I would think you would say Bumble, the creation of Bumble is your highlight.

I love Bumble, of course, but there is no law without Bumble. There is none of these great things without Bumble. And Bumble is, you know, it's my heart and soul. It's my first child.

Well, you did give birth to Bumble. And when you did the ipo, you were the youngest woman to take a company public. What was that like for you?

Well, that statistic is actually disheartening, right? The fact that I was the youngest, I'm like, oh, my gosh, we have a problem here. It was a sensational moment. And it was.

Oh, you were 31.

31, yeah.

That's young. Come on.

Of course I was young. But, you know, it was shocking. You know, there's a lot of men out there that have done IPOs in their 20s. And when you think about what leads a woman to be the youngest at 31, it's that we were never invested in properly or encouraged to go out and forego society's standards to go and try to create a company and then to take it public. And I will say, you know, going public is not just me. It was a huge labor of love from so many team members. Bumble in general is not a one woman show. Right. This is an army of. It's a hive of a lot of incredible people that made it possible. So I certainly cannot take singular credit to any degree, but as the CEO of the business, as the founder of the business, it was really a really remarkable day to see that we all collectively made it, that we got to that point. It was really exciting.

And you were holding your son, your true, real, physical child, not your corporate child.

Yeah, not my corporate child.

And I guess he couldn't tell what the heck was happening with mom with confetti. Came down for the ipa.

He almost pulled mom's face off during that. I think it was a little overwhelming for him. But he loved the balloons, he loved the confetti. He was taking some of his first steps backstage. It was a really special day.

Let's talk about your success, which is phenomenal and fantastic. But do you sometimes feel like as a successful woman, you're still having to defend yourself? I mean, are you, as a woman, do you feel you're judged more harshly?

Yes, I think so. But I've stopped defending myself because I'm not going to do it anymore. I think it's exhausting for women. We just live in constant Defensive mode. Right. And that is so exhausting. And I don't owe anyone any explanation. And if a man doesn't have to explain himself, I certainly don't need to. And so I've just kind of moved from that.

How did you move on, then? I mean, for all the women who are watching this, how do you say, okay, enough already, I've had it.

We only have so many hours in the day, and women have a lot of responsibilities, and we have a lot of people that need us, families and friends. And, you know, we're seen as kind of the ultimate nurturers in the world, whether that's our teams or whatever. And I'm just only gonna give my energy to the people that deserve it, and I'm just not going to give it to anybody that doesn't.

Speaking of being a CEO and now saying, okay, enough of this, do you find that it's harder for women today to become a CEO or to stay a CEO?

The staying the CEO part is actually a very interesting topic and what I think is sad. And actually I had a somewhat heated discussion about this the other day with a man who I respect quite a bit. You know, it was this conversation of, like, well, you know, at some point you might want to, you know, you might want to not be the CEO. And I said, well, I have a question for you. If my name was Mark or Joe or Johnny, do you think we'd be having this conversation?

Oh, my gosh.

And that was the only question I asked him. And he really stopped and thought about it for a second, and he said, I don't know the answer to that right now. So I want you to go think about it, because I don't think you would have told Johnny, Joe or Mark or whoever the same thing. I think you might be looking at this through the lens of I'm a woman, and you're assuming I want lots of kids, and you're assuming I want to be the mom thing, and I can do all of that, and I don't need to give away my power to be able to be a multifaceted woman. And I don't think we should set that standard for other women. And that was the conversation we had. And I got a note later saying, I really appreciated that conversation. I have a lot to think about. So these conversations are still taking place.

That so unbelievable. But it has become a phenomenon now called a glass cliff. Because women can become a CEO, but they're often by men pushed off the cliff or encouraged off the CEO post.

Oh, I'm not going off any cliff, I'll tell you that much. And I won't do it for myself and for all the other women out there. And when I'm ready to go off the cliff electively, that would be win, right? But not because of anybody else.

Thank you so much for joining us on the inflection point. It's been such a so fun and inspiring.

Thank you so much for having me. I've so enjoyed our conversation.